Preserving and Adapting Non-Traditional Practices: Family Stories of the Healer’s Descendants

Abstract

The publication presents the materials of field research conducted by the author in 2000 in the Yaroslavl region (town Poshekhonye). The author investigates the folk medicine treatment methods of representatives of several generations of the same family, whose members are descendants of a famous local healer of the 19th century. In the published texts, we are talking about a variety of practices used in everyday life by members of this family: psychological assistance (hypnosis, extrasensory methods); non-contact massage; accompanying practices (fortune-telling, collecting herbs for magical actions); magic rituals (transfer of “knowledge”, love spells, magic with water).